


Jagged Silhouettes

by MatildaSwan



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Community: sanctuary_bingo, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 04:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatildaSwan/pseuds/MatildaSwan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen developed a type.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jagged Silhouettes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sanctuary_bingo prompt; _themed_ and a_writing_muse: prompt; _reminder._

She was a ghost in this life. This was a fragment, a reflection of her time on earth; she had to act accordingly. It took a decade or more for her to realise, but Helen developed a type; during her repeat performance on Earth. Youthful and charming, with an accent that reminded her of home. She might have called them young once; now she was ancient and the word turned to ash in her mouth. 

They reminded her of her family, of her dearly departed, long dead; alive again and even further away. They were perverted replicas of previous loves, breathing shadows of figures in the distance. Bright like James, but not nearly as sharp. Spurned like Nikola, but not burnt and scorched. Honest like Nigel; domineering like John. They smelt like home, enough to remind herself of memories; never enough to lose herself in them as she closed her eyes. 

They weren’t exceptional; she wouldn’t discourage them with broken promises and half-truths. They were special; she couldn’t damage them either. These people were not searching, they had already succeeded. Love, happiness, destiny; they had already been claimed, though not fulfilled. They were simply looking for a way back; for the path that led to the road they had run from. Helen was their guide.

She found them in taverns in vagrant towns; beside ports and docks and railway stations. Places with names the no one bothered to remember. Places people simply found themselves on their way to somewhere else, going towards somewhere more important. They found her in crowded bar in metropolises scattered around the globe: cities where people lost themselves in seas of bodies, stone architecture, and mid-morning fog. They singled her out in rooms full of people, locking eyes as they ignored the gaze of others. 

They misplaced themselves in her presence; Helen’s collection of strays.

Helen gave them nothing of herself, save memories they did their best to forget. She left nothing of herself behind, save rumpled sheets and the slightest trace of perfume hanging above an empty bed. It was hollow: enough to scratch the itch at the edge of Helen’s soul, to keep her sane. They came nowhere near her heart; they had no desire to travel close to it. 

She remembered them all; not in detail, but well enough to wonder if they found their way home. Some did, Helen liked to think most. Others returned, only to leave again; some voluntarily, others not. Some were more lost and beyond even her help. Some started their journey, but never made it back. 

Politics invaded, opinions explode and holes formed where their causalities once were. Disease and famine took their payments; ravaging lives without mercy. Wars came and went, and took their sacrifices with them. Helen could tell which ones had seen the Kraken; they had the same dimness in their eyes as James. More and more seemed like James as decades neared a century; she stopped wondering about their future as she grew nearer to her present.

Helen _liked_ to think most found their happily ever after, but she was no fool.

Fairy tales are only beautiful when you choose to end the story.


End file.
